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comment by crafty
crafty  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Imagine if the media covered alcohol like other drugs

    Alcohol is not the same as other drugs, it's socially ingrained in human society and you can't separate that while still having an intelligent conversation.

Alcohol is ingrained in dominant western culture, not all human society though. I don't think it's the easiest drug to come by in nature and has tons of detrimental side effects. Believe me, I get why alcohol is so central to us; it's part and parcel of the New Testament after all, but that still doesn't make its place in our society logical when you compare its harmful effects.





tacocat  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't usually talk about drugs on the internet because I don't like talking with people on the internet who want to talk about drugs. And for this one instance, talking about this in real life is even worse. Being high and unable to tell someone to shut up or politely leave is really boring.

On one hand I totally agree that pot is safe and not as harmful as alcohol, on the other hand, this argument is pushed to such a ridiculous extreme with people who really like getting high that they seem to think overwhelmingly that it doesn't impair their ability to maneuver a one ton box of steel, glass and manslaughter because they drive slower due to being paranoid.

I really never want to see alcohol compared to weed again when there are actual sobering (hehe) facts about the way drug users are treated as criminals.

It's not logical, it's hypocritical but that doesn't matter, there are a lot of illogical and hypocritical parts of society, but this argument that alcohol is worse just fills my mind with all the stoners I've known and got high with who make the same joke that no one gets high and hits their wife. The kind of people who care enough about drugs being legal to spout off about it are usually the kind of people who hinder that cause. No one else cares as much as you, we can buy a six pack. Try advocating for non violent offenders. Don't wake and bake a couple times a week. Alcoholics who get drunk in the morning get rejected by their families. The equivalent of wake and bake for alcohol is crippling dependence. All of you refocus your attention, it's not the same thing.

crafty  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Sorry, I just don't think I'm following your argument, and if you don't want to talk about drugs, that's fine, I don't want to to goad you into a discussion you wanted to avoid in the first place. You did make a flippant top comment here and I assumed otherwise, so I apologize for responding.

_refugee_  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I don't think it's the easiest drug to come by in nature and has tons of detrimental side effects.

Dude, even animals get drunk. 2 It's just fermented fruit. Wherever there's fruit, and not all of it's been picked, you get alcohol. It's the easiest drug to come by in nature that I can think of, that humans consume.

crafty  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, alcohol is pretty easy to come by, but so are many psychedelic plants and fungi (just pick and eat if you have the right environmental knowledge). Cocoa leaves grow on trees, and while that's not the same as tacocat's crackrock metaphor, South American cultures have been chewing on them and making tea out of them for thousands of years. Marijuana and opium have been cultivated for a very long time too, picking and smoking them doesn't seem much more difficult than fermenting alcohol.

_refugee_  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Eh, my point here was kind of that it's so common even animals, who can't wield fire to smoke drugs, can come across it in nature and consume it. As for the psychedelic plants and fungi, I really think you'd be hard put to find any that grow as widely as the significantly broad category of "fruit," but I don't know enough about those species to really say. True about cocoa, I've actually had cocoa tea - but again, clearly, that's limited to a single continent, whereas fruit isn't.

thenewgreen  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

true. Some animals literally seek it out.

crafty  ·  3229 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, and it's not just fruit, but grains can ferment as well. Alcohol can be made pretty much anywhere. Alcohol certainly is one of the prehistoric intoxicants human society learned to consume thousands of years ago, but it is just one of many other naturally occurring drugs. That was my point, but you're totally right, alcohol is very common in nature.